


Fallen

by MissTheCatLady (orphan_account)



Category: Evolution SMP, Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Evo SMP, Grian needs a nap, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Not A Great Writer, Magic, Probably inconsistent uploads, Temporary Character Death, The Watchers are jerks, Xisuma needs a nap, YHS mentions, Yhs-freeform, everybody needs a hug, more tags will be added, please bear with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MissTheCatLady
Summary: Grian starts acting weird. No one thinks anything of it until a strange tower appears. The server gets messed up, and everyone gets stressed out.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 238





	1. Chapter 1

Mumbo walked through the dusty streets of New Hermitville, staring up at the remains of the build war.

 _I should have won that,_ he thought to himself, _I made it the highest first_.

He saw a red and blue figure atop the pile of spruce houses. He grabbed his fireworks and flew up there, hitting the side of the building. He clung to the side for dear life until Grian pulled him up.

"I really need to teach you to fly," the trickster laughed as his friend clung to his side.

"I know how to fly just fine, thank you very much." He brushed off his suit, although it didn't have anything on it.

"You sure?"

Mumbo punched the other man's arm playfully. "What are you doing up here?"

Mumbo looked over at him. After a moment, Grian reluctantly answered. "I think I'm gonna stay in the village for a while. I have some things I need to figure out."

The mustached man's smile faltered as soon as he noticed his friend's dampened mood. "Are you gonna be okay here alone? Do you want me to bring you anything?"

"I… I think so. I do have something at my base I wanna grab, though. Do you wanna come with?"

"Sure."

\---

They flew through the lowest opening of Grian's base. Mumbo looked at the massive pile of chests and shulkers. They taunted him. Before he could comment on it, Grian took off and flew up through the massive hole in the ceiling. Mumbo shook his head and muttered to himself "Show off."

He spread his elytra and followed Grian. He spotted the man digging a hole next to a bush. Mumbo stood over his friend's shoulder as he pulled out a purple shulker box from the ground. Mumbo raised an eyebrow. "Why was it so hidden? No one would find it in your mess of a storage system anyway."

"Just didn't want to lose it, I guess."

 _Liar,_ Mumbo thought. He shook his head. _No. He's fine. He's an adult. He can handle it himself._

"I'm gonna head back to my base. Will I see you at the meeting tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

Before he could say goodbye, Grian had flown out of the tower with the box. Mumbo sighed and flew off to Xisuma's prismarine base. If anyone knew what was going on, it was him.

\---

X was sitting on his bed wearing his backup air filter. His helmet was sitting next to him, broken. As soon as he saw the scene in front of him, Mumbo's goal completely changed. He knocked on the wall.

The redstoner spoke softly. "Another headache?"

"Yeah." His admin's voice was weak.

"Do you want Doc to come and fix your visor?"

"No, I'll fix it in the morning. What do you need?" He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh. It's nothing. Grian's just been acting weird. Guess I just wanted someone to talk to."

The admin patted the bed next to him. Mumbo sat next to him. X leaned on him. They sat in comfortable silence for about an hour before the admin fell asleep. The bags on his eyes were getting worse. Mumbo gently laid him down, careful not to wake him up. He pulled the covers over the sleepy admin and left quietly.

\---

The redstoner flew to his base and grabbed some golden carrots. The sun was going down, but he wasn't tired. He grabbed a backup elytra and flew around the shopping district. The streets were bare. He landed carefully on top of Sahara. Despite how much they all worked on it, it seemed like it would never be finished. Despite his bad thoughts, he jumped down into the warehouse and started working. Slowly, his energy faded and he fell against the wall.

_I'll just rest for a bit. The redstone must be getting to me._

He woke up hours later to a frustrated Swede poking his cheek and a parrot trying to eat his ear. He looked up at the two of them. "I fell asleep, didn't I?"

Iskall pulled him to his feet. "Yup, and I'm the only one that showed up to the meeting on time."

"Where's Grian?"

Iskall shrugged. "Beats me. I went to his house in the village, but he just said he was busy. It looked like he got blown up."

"Well, should we start working?"

"Not until you get some sleep and quit talking in questions."

"Ugh, fine," the redstoner sighed dramatically as the shorter man pulled him away from his work.

Iskall pushed Mumbo all the way to his sphere of lag before leaving. "I'm gonna go check on Grian. We'll reschedule the meeting."

"Bye," Mumbo waved, but Iskall had already left. No one seemed to want to linger these days.


	2. Chapter 2

As night fell, Scar sat on the beach of his pirate island, watching the sun fall in the west for another night. The sky was purple; all the clouds were bright pink. Jellie was fast asleep in his arms. He almost didn't want to go inside, so he waited.

Suddenly, Jellie stood up and hissed at something behind her owner. He turned around to find 5 creepers, all petrified at the sight of the little cat. He grabbed his rockets and Jellie and flew away as quickly as he could. Jellie jumped out of his arms and sat outside while the builder dived into his underwater cave. He had other places he could hide, but this would have to do. He pulled out his communicator.

<GoodTimesWithScar> Anybody else have tons of creepers spawning??

<Docm77> I have lots of everything. Did the spawn rates go up with the update???

<GoodTimesWithScar> I dunno. This didnt happen earlier

MumboJumbo was blown up by Creeper.

Iskall85 was killed by Zombie

<Xisuma> Everybody go hide in the nearest base. I'll fix this.

<Iskall85> Yay!! X to the rescue!

Scar smiled and played down the device. X will know what to do. Right?

\---

The next morning, he swam out of the small cave and sat on the beach next to Jellie again. He checked his communicator. It was filled with death messages. He was really glad for respawning right now.

The terraformer got up and looked around. No mobs in sight. Assuming that X already fixed the issue, he flew around the world, looking for something to do.

He saw Grian down below him when he flew over New Hermitville. The builders waved at each other, then quickly moved on. Scar wanted to chat, but the other looked busy.

_ Wonder what he's working on. Must be important for him to go so off the radar. _

Lost in thought, he slammed straight into a building that he swore wasn't there before. He hit the ground, just barely surviving. Looking up, he saw a tall obsidian tower with bedrock around the base.

"Woah…"

\---

Cub was walking to the ConCorp meeting room to lay down more cake when his communicator buzzed loudly at his side. He pulled it out of his jacket and looked at the messages. They were in a private chat with him and Scar.

<GoodTimesWithScar> cub come herr

<GoodTimesWithScar> thid is important

After that was just a set of coordinates. Usually, Scar would spell check what he wrote. He grabbed his elytra and flew to the location that was given to him. He found a giant tower made of obsidian and bedrock. At the bottom of the tower, his friend was struggling to get up.

Cub landed next to his friend. Scar's face was covered with bruises and some dried blood. His arm was out of place and his elytra was heavily damaged. His wounds were barely healing.

"What happened to you?" Cub held his friend close, careful to avoid his injuries.

"Would you believe me if I said it was a lag spike?" The builder smiled weakly.

"No. Let's get you somewhere safe first." Cub pulled out his communicator and wrote in the main chat.

<Cubfan135> Can someone bring some health potions to the concorp hq?

<Cubfan135> and some other medical supplies?

<Renthedog> what happened??

<Cubfan135> Scar got hurt really badly, theres a weird tower out by the village, and hes not healing

<JoeHills> omw

<Renthedog> Same

Cub picked his friend up gently and took off, flying slowly and carefully. The friend in his arms passed out about halfway there.

The landing was rough, but Scar stayed out through all of it. Joe and Ren met them at the entrance. Ren took the injured into a hastily set up bedroom made in the meeting room. They started cleaning his wounds quickly before he woke up.

After the initial panic and care, Cub sat next to his friend and waited for him to wake up. When he eventually did, Cub smiled at him.

"How ya feeling?"

He groaned, "My head hurts…"

"I know." Cub stroked his friend's hair gently. "X wanted to talk to you about that tower. Do you think you're gonna be up for it?"

"I think so, yeah."

"I'll call him over then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, he'll be fine.
> 
> Eventually


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xisuma makes bad decisions and they investigate the tower.

When X got the message from Cub, he ran. He soon realized that it would get him nowhere, so he grabbed his elytra and took off. He left behind a dirty room, covered in small redstone devices and parts of his helmet. The tired man didn't realize how long his backup respirator had been running.

As soon as Xisuma landed, his head started spinning. He shook his head, trying to get the dizziness to stop. He walked to the meeting room quietly. Ren met up with him partway there.

“You okay dude? You look kinda sick.” The hybrid man examined the admin’s features. He didn’t want to mention it, but it had been a long time since Ren had seen X’s facial features in sunlight. Or, any light for that matter. His face was pale and his scars had faded slightly over time.

The admin took a second to answer. “I’m fine. There’s just a lot of things I need to fix.”

“Does that include your helmet? I thought you couldn’t breathe without it.” Ren watched his friend lose his way, despite the simple layout of the HQ.

“I have a backup air… thingy.” He touched the respirator lightly like he forgot that it was there.

When they reached the meeting room, Scar was sitting in a chair instead of the messy, light gray bed set up in the corner. Cub was sitting next to his friend, trying to decide whether or not to stress-eat another piece of cake. The builder looked up as soon as he heard footsteps nearby.

“Hi X! Want some cake?” Scar smiled brightly, ignoring his blaring headache.

“No, no I’m alright.” X sat down across the table from the two capitalists. “So, what did you see out there?”

\---

X held a torch high and wandered into the dark tower. Ren and Joe followed close behind, examining everything they could see. In the room, there was a ladder up to a different floor, and a single sign on the ground, reading:

_ Welcome, Hermits. _

Ren climbed the ladder shakily. He stood at the top of the climb and froze. The room was covered in stained glass windows, each telling a story.

In the front of the room, there was an empty bedrock throne. Just behind it was some sort of symbol embedded in the wall. It looked like a broken, bedrock nether portal. A lectern sat in front of the throne, holding a closed, purple book. Joe was the first to open it, and he read it out loud.

_ Hello, Hermits. _

_ We are the watchers. We do not mean to intrude, but we seem to have lost one of us in your world. _

_ We have done our best to bring him back quietly, but now we need your help. _

_ We do not wish to take him by force. We are not dangerous, despite what he thinks of us. _

_ Please, convince him to come back to us. _

_ We have brought gifts for him. Perhaps they will help. _

_ Bring us our fallen brother. _

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Ren asked as soon as Joe stopped talking.

“I don’t know, but I feel like we shouldn’t trust these people. What do you think X?”

X didn’t answer. He was staring at the windows.

The first window showed three people: A pale, thin girl with red hair; a boy wearing a blue shirt, suspenders, and blue and red headphones; and a shorter man with sandy blonde hair and a red sweater. A white rabbit sat in front of the blue shirt boy, and a shadow in a purple cloak sat behind them all. A metal label below the window read:

_ The Saved Ones _

“I think I found the gifts they were talking about,” Joe spoke as he searched through a chest, “Not sure we should give these to whoever they want, though.”

“I think they want Grian. He’s in this window picture thing.” X was still tired. His head was spinning from the oxygen slowly filling his system.

“What’s in there?” Ren looked over Joe’s shoulder and into the box, answering his question for himself.

Lying in the box was a bloody knife, a gun, a pair of broken blue and red headphones, a bunny hat, and a camera. They picked them up, storing the items safely in a shulker box.

“I’ll let you investigate these after you get some proper sleep, X.” Joe took the shulker box.

The admin tried to protest, but Ren was already pulling him out the door.

\---

“Grian?” Mumbo knocked on his friend’s spruce door while Iskall stood close behind him. “You in there buddy?”

They heard a loud crash inside the tall house. Soon after, Grian stepped out of spruce monstrosity wearing jeans, a light purple t-shirt, and a pair of white socks without shoes. He had bags around his eyes, and it was evident that he hadn’t slept in a while. “What’s up?” The trickster asked as he rubbed his eyes, trying to get used to the sunlight.

“It’s time for our meeting,” Mumbo looked over at Iskall nervously, “Are you gonna come this time?”

“Sure.” He glanced back into his house before closing the door. Iskall caught a glimpse of something beyond the door: bedrock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The watchers are threatening, and Grian is out of character.

As Ren and X prepared to fly, a shadowy figure appeared in front of them. It was taller than the admin and somehow taller than Doc. It wore a purple cloak and a mask with the broken portal symbol from inside the tower on it. Its body was made of a pure void. Ren couldn’t look at it for very long without getting sick. It’s voice echoed through their skulls.

“You have until morning to finish the task. Otherwise, we will interfere.”

  
The figure, a watcher, X guessed, disappeared as quickly as it came. Despite the two men behind him, frozen in fear, he tried to keep walking. His elytra was lopsided and digging into his shoulderblade.

“We need to find him.” X’s voice was serious and strained. He was breathing hard.

Joe walked up behind him and started to fix the admin’s elytra. “We’ll find Grian as soon as you get some rest. Do you want me to call Mumbo to stay with him?”

“No,” X panted as his knees buckled, “We have to tell him.”

“Ren, help me get him out of here.”

The hybrid helped the poet lift their friend and they flew to his base. They found the broken helmet and decided to call Doc. Joe went down to the kitchen and started making food and tea for when the admin woke up. A voice in the back of the poet’s head interrupted. 

_ If. If he wakes up. You know what happened to Scar. _

He shook his head, pushing his bad thoughts out of the way. He had to stay positive. Who knew how everyone else would react.

\---

As soon as X was in Doc’s care, Ren left to find Grian. Finding the spruce tower in New Hermitville locked up, he messaged the mustached madman.

**Private Chat** **(Renthedog, MumboJumbo)**

<Renthedog> Is Grian with you?

<Renthedog> Dude? I really need an answer.

<MumboJumbo> Hes with me and iskall

<Renthedog> Good. Don’t let him out of your sight until Xisuma wakes up.

<MumboJumbo> What happened to X??

<Renthedog> Overworked his respirator I think. Doc’s fixing it.

<MumboJumbo> Ok

<MumboJumbo> Ill keep an eye on him. Please make sure X is alright

<Renthedog> Will do

\---

Mumbo looked up from his communicator to see Iskall looking over his shoulder. 

“That doesn’t sound good.” Iskall stepped away.

“I’ll go find Grian,” Mumbo sighed, “He’s probably in the meeting room. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Iskall nodded and let his friend leave. They had been working for a few hours now, and the fun had gone. They were getting a lot of work done, though, so they just kept working. Mumbo brushed some of the redstone dust off his suit, and walked over to the meeting room.

The table was covered with stacks of paper. A pile of redstone supplies sat in the corner of the room, untouched. Shattered glass littered the floor next to the wall. Across form that wall was the parrot cage, with Grian sitting in front of it with his head down. His elytra looked like he put it on too tightly. It was pressed against his shoulders, keeping him from moving. Mumbo could see a small blood stain on his friend's left shoulder around the elytra's strap.

"Knock, knock." The lanky engineer tapped the wall lightly, trying not to scare his friend. The friend looked up. He didn't say anything. He just stared.

"Do you want some help with your elytra?" The blonde nodded and stumbled over to Mumbo. He could see a few feathers peek out from underneath the elytra. He started adjusting the straps gently. Grian flinched with every movement.

The engineer lifted the elytra off gently, revealing a pair of feathered wings. Many of the feathers were crooked or broken. They hadn't been moved in a very long time.

"You know, no one will judge you if you start using your real wings," Mumbo said, trying to be comforting as his friend stretched his broken wings.

"What would I tell them? That I'm running from immortals? Or that I'm an admin of a world I abandoned?"

"What's wrong?" Mumbo put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"What d'you mean?" The builder flinched away from the touch. He didn't look over at his friend.

"You're not acting right. Has your magic been bothering you again?"

"I'm fine, Mumbo."

"You're avoiding the question. Please don't lie to me. I just want to help you." The redstoner moved to look his friend in the eyes. The builder looked away.

“I don’t need help. I’m fine.”

Mumbo grabbed the builder by the shoulders. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone if you stay at my base tonight. I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“Alright.”

  
  



End file.
